Book Log 15/2010 - N.M. Browne: Shadow Web

[jacey]

N.M. Browne: Shadow Web

You should never google your own name. When Jess does, she contacts another Jessica Allendon. Mistake number one. Her second mistake is going to meet her namesake. A handshake and Jess' world falls apart. She finds herself still in 2008 and it's London, but not the same one. All the rules have changed. The two world wars never happened; emancipation never happened. England is under the iron fist of its government and rebellion is seething beneath the surface.

Jess' skimpy T-shirt and jeans are the first thing to get her into a lot of trouble in this very prim and proper society as, left without options, she takes up the reins of the other Jessica's life, as a live-in personal secretary to a politician's wife, trying to survive, trying to get back home.

Some people in her old life have doubles in her new one. Jonathan Roberts - the husband's secretary, looks just like her best friend Jonno, but can she trust him? People are picking sides and she doesn't know which side she's supposed to be on and whether Jonathan is on the same side or not.

It's a fast-paced energetic story for readers of approximately 12 upwards that draws you in from page one and doesn't let you go. Jess' visceral bewilderment and panic gradually give way to dogged determination. Suspicion gradually turns to love. People are not always what and who they seem to be and plot twists come thick and fast to lead to a breathless climax. Highly recommended.